What is brand affinity and how can you build it?
Dec 01, 2022
Blog content remains the most effective way to share detailed information about topics that engage and inform your buyers. But there are many other channels out there, and focusing on blogging alone could mean you’re missing out on some great chances to reach your audience.
Ultimately, to maximise the worth of your blog content, you must go where your audience is.
Blogging is an essential B2B marketing tactic. It improves website discoverability as every blog post you publish can be indexed by search engines and discovered by your buyers. Additionally, blogging lets you show your expertise to your buyers as you help them overcome challenges, and can position you as an expert in your category.
Additionally, if search engines successfully rank your blog posts, it simultaneously improves the authority of your core website pages, ranking them more highly for high-intent keywords that are more likely to be used by purchase-ready buyers. It can also improve commercial page ranking with the right internal linking.
In B2B, blogging is a win-win. It's effective, has a low barrier to entry, and only becomes more powerful as time passes.
A well-developed B2B blog will be made up of years of well-thought-out blog posts, targeting key search terms and topics that attract your target audience. These blogs will provide value to your audience with rich, informational content that's useful to their needs, whether they're looking immediately for a solution to their problem or are simply browsing. You can check out our blog, as an example.
If this sounds similar to your blog content, you're in luck. You're in the perfect position to repurpose your content for other channels and maximise the value of your blog posts. And if you're yet to develop a complete library of blog content, you still are able to make the most of the little you might have. Here's how.
The first step is to create a framework plan. Consider questions like what existing content and topics you'll target and what channels your audience uses.
Focus on setting up a framework that powers your repurposing engine. This includes the cogs that turn after a blog is published, what happens after, and in what order. Also, consider what actions have to be completed to repurpose content.
When creating your plan, document your repurposing process so that you can stick to it.
What is content repurposing?
Content repurposing is the practice of using elements of your existing content in a new format. For example, taking information from a blog post, such as the key takeaway points, and using it to create a social media-friendly post and graphic. This is also known as content recycling.
Now you've established a plan, it's more straightforward to choose what content to repurpose. Ultimately, you want to repurpose content that is useful and informative to your target audience.
Examine your analytics, metrics, and qualitative insights to see what content and channels are the most successful for your business. Look at metrics like number of visits and time spent on the page. Blogs that perform well are the best choice for repurposing as it's likely people will find them useful and engaging. For example, a listicle blog that ranks well being turned into an infographic/video for social sharing.
Blend recommends: Create an Excel document listing the most successful blog posts. You can use this to manage and prioritise what you want to repurpose first.
When repurposing blog content, you don't want to simply copy and paste the entire content of a blog into a new format. Instead, select the key insights from your content that are engaging and informative. This might be sentences, headings, or statistics from your content that people will find interesting. Or, summarising the key takeaways from a blog.
If you've followed these steps closely, during the planning stage, it's likely you considered what channels you intend to use your content on.
Now you have key insights from your content, decide what channels it belongs on. It's important to know where your audience wants to consume content and in what ways. For example, if they like reading email newsletters, create one, if they use LinkedIn, post content there, if they use TikTok, share videos there.
You've collected the key insights from your blog content. And you've decided what channels you'd like to use them on. The next step is to choose what formats your content will be. For example, a graphic for social media, video, animation, short-form text, long-form text, the list can go on.
You can gauge the formats your audience likes by looking at a couple of things:
You'll need to reconsider what members of your team you'll need to repurpose content. If you're creating new graphics you'll need a designer, for example. If you're creating short-form videos, you'll need video capabilities. Allocate resources and plan for this when deciding formats.
It's time to get started putting your repurposed content out into the world. If you've created a framework and plan, activation should be a breeze.
Your new content should work for you to generate brand awareness, inform your audience, and create more demand for your offering. While executing your strategy, make sure to keep tabs on what's working and what's not.
There are lots of ways you can repurpose your blog content. Depending on the content you've created, it'll be suitable for different channels. This also depends on the audience you are targeting. To truly make the most out of your content, get creative. Consider channels that have high engagement, but aren't always utilised in B2B. For example, podcasts. 43% of business decision-makers say they use podcasts to access business-related content, making them a rapidly growing opportunity.
More traditional mediums are powerful too. Text posts, images, and video, when posted to social media channels, can generate you more engagement. While mediums like email newsletters, when sent out regularly with the intention to simply be informative, are a powerful method of keeping people intrigued about your offering. All while demonstrating your expertise on a subject matter.
50 ways to repurpose blog content:
1. A podcast
2. Customer research
3. Digital illustrations
4. Infographics
5. Animated explainer videos
6. Animated shorts
7. Ad creative
8. Live videos
9. TikTok content
10. Memes
11. Animated case studies
12. A strategic narrative
13. Interactive ads
14. Short films
15. Twitter threads
16. LinkedIn carousel decks
17. Free calculators/tools
18. Songs
19. Free courses
20. Education hubs
21. Original research
22. Product onboarding videos
23. Audible versions of your written content
24. Virtual events
25. Slide decks
26. Better web copy, better web design, better messaging, better positioning
27. Webinars
28. Commercials
29. Billboards
30. Vlogs
31. Checklists
32. A branded art style
33. Brand characters/mascots
34. A fictional world (with storylines) for your brand characters to occupy
35. Ebooks/reports designed like comic books, graphic novels, or anything other than ebooks/reports
36. A YouTube show
37. GIFographics
38. Conceptual shows
39. An employer brand
40. Social proof, case studies, video testimonials
41. Native content
42. AR/VR experiences
43. Free mobile/web apps
44. Custom brand tunes
45. A documentary
46. A music playlist on YouTube
47. Video memes
48. A streaming platform for professionals in your space/industry
49. On-demand live demos/product tours
50. Free (ungated) playbooks breaking down your best campaigns, strategies, and results
Source: Obaid Durrani on LinkedIn
We repurposed our blog 'Why lead scoring doesn't work and what to do instead' into multiple formats, like video and audio. It takes the key points from the blog and goes into more detail in a conversational format. This is useful for our audience that prefers to watch and listen to content, rather than read.
Here's exactly what we did with our blog:
The compound return you'll get from blogging over time will outlive the benefits of short-term content, like social media posts. For example, blog posts that are evergreen, meaning high-quality and relevant over time, have the potential to rank well in search engines and provide a continuous amount of traffic to your website. But content repurposing lets you capitalise on the sheer amount of content you'll have created, making it another powerful method of growth. 
